"Mostly digital and installation work. We did a landscape design project for a client where they had to place mountains in a certain pattern to guide how Sepinns flew in the sky. Maylyn did most of the heavy lifting there, and it gave her a lot of pride to be able to change their world on that scale. I'm counting on the same here at GVU."
"Ain't that a lot of pressure to put on a junior?"
"I think she'll enjoy it; she has a great work ethic."
"The only things I'd be worried about are the warrior instincts and the environment. She's relocating to Neerg, right?"
"Yes, all taken into account." Chloe took another couple of bites. "I also have the perfect Art Director to work with her, Vanessa Locsolen."
Melinda raised her eyebrows. "You don't mean that senior designer working on Specter Syndicate Projects, right?"
"Yes, she embodies the type of clients Macmor is trying to attract."
As Chloe took the final bite that finished off the donut, silence filled the room. That last bite went down roughly as a chill washed through her spine when Melinda frowned. Of all people, she would have thought Melinda would welcome this. The sudden silence from Melinda made her hands slide up and grip the edge of the table.
"Couldn't you have gone with someone with more experience, like Cita, Ken, or even Lena?" said Melinda. "They dealt with plenty of difficult clients and talent more than she did. Might as well since we're going back to Hilda for more money."
Chloe shook her head. "It has to be Vanessa. She's the only one I'm sure is tough enough to handle the clients we're getting and keep Maylyn motivated."
Melinda leaned back and crossed her legs, sighing. "Look Chloe, you obviously haven't been here long enough, but I've seen enough to tell ya that Vanessa ain't the person you want on this team."
"Why's that?"
Melinda fiddled with her cup of coffee, letting it rotate around in her hand. "She's... what's the point if the Art Director blows heat whenever our clients turn into clowns?"
"You and I talk about unreasonable clients all the time."
Melinda shook her head as her ears twitched. "I'm talking about if she has to deal with them. She'll scare the heck out of any softies."
"She didn't seem that scary to me. I'll admit, she may be a little rough, but—"
"A little rough?" Melinda's voice rose. "Just last week, that gal almost fried some client's head." Melinda growled and sat up. "He brought his son with him that day and the poor kid had the sad luck of being in the room while she was roaring flames at him." As Melinda leaned in, her ears shifted back. "He cried his balls out while that gal had his father trapped in a corner."
Chloe's grip on the table tightened. "Vanessa told me the client already gave approval and was being rude. What he asked for would have been a huge cost increase."
"Reeeeowww. They ain't gonna pay either way if they're dead."
It took a couple of moments of silence before Chloe and Melinda leaned back into their seats. Chloe had her elbows on the table while Melinda took a long draw of her own coffee with her tail whipping the floor. Just as their eyes locked and their mouths opened, crackling filled the air. A ball of electricity struck the table, and Adam's form shifted back to normal. "I'm done taking a look around… um, did I interrupt something?"
"'Course not, you didn't interrupt nothin'." Melinda growled and folded her arms.
"How's the wiring?" asked Chloe.
"About that, there's something I need to show—"
The room shook. Everyone got under the table as it grew into a raging tremor. Dust and a couple of the drooped fixtures fell on the table along with a few of the ceiling tiles before it calmed and stopped.
"You needed to show me a quake?" said Chloe.
"No, that wasn't it." Adam shivered. "Though now, we need to also check the building's structural integrity too."
Chloe face-palmed and sighed heavily.
The electrical room in Building 770 had to be accessed through two metal doors in the stairwell, which itself suffered from a lack of attention. Broken rubber pieces lined the edges of each step, with iron rails lined with rust. Fortunately, so far, there were no cracks or something obvious which could bring the whole building down. They followed Adam downstairs as the Voltfae flew over bunches of dust. Chloe stepped in some type of ooze made from oil and rust.
"Eww. I think I should do research on getting some flight gear," Said Chloe.
"Flying is not as simple as it looks," said Adam.
Melinda had her hand on her nose. “I don't know what smells worse, Chloe's gifts from onboarding or the lousy space in here. Didn't anyone tell the janitors there's actually a stairwell in here?"
Adam shrugged and reached the end of the stairs when they got to the doors, which oddly enough had a card sensor on it, the only sign of something modern. Adam reached forward and tried his key. A buzz and flashing red light was its response.
"How did you get in the first time?" asked Melinda.
"I got in through the electrical wiring. It had much more room than computer network wiring."
"Right, you zapped in. Pretty handy ability, can get you into some really nice places if you know what I mean."
"I'd only do it if it's not a high security room."
Melinda smirked, hunching over. "Sure, I believe ya." She tried her key fob, and she too was met with a buzz. "Maybe you can zap on over and open the door for us?"
"They're too heavy for me."
"C'mon, you look like a fit fae who can pull more than his own weight."
"Not the weight of a metal door."
Chloe had her key fob in her hand and stepped in. "Here, let me try." She tapped her key, and the sensor beeped with approval as a green light glowed and the door unlocked.
"You gotta be kidding me. I'm supposed to be the co-director of this agency and I don't have the same access as you? I'm calling out a conspiracy with Zully."
"It's not my fault." She pulled the door, and it groaned but didn't move more than an inch. "Yuck, more rust."
"No big deal. We got Ms. Money in the house. C'mon, put more tank strength into that! You already broke down one door this morning."
"That was an accident and I'm not breaking company property."
"I ain't asking ya that. Just pull way harder."
Chloe slid one palm onto the handle, planted her feet and pulled. More of the door inched out and exposed a crusty layer of rust. Chloe grunted and when she yanked it back, something gave, and she stumbled back into Melinda. She tried to catch Chloe, but they both ended up falling to the ground while the open door swung and slammed into the wall with a bang. Chloe's hands and the sides of her dress were littered with dust.
"Yuck, yuck, yuck." Chloe scampered to her feet and dusted her clothing off as best she could.
Stepping into the Electrical Room was almost like suddenly stepping into a storage for relics of the past. Natural light slightly brightened the room from a couple of ground windows in the back. Once Adam flicked the room switch, fluorescent lights illuminated the room and hummed. Chloe flinched at the army of dust bunnies that lined the metallic boxes as she entered.
A knock came from above. "Ouch, damn it, again?" said Melinda as she rubbed her forehead. She hunched over with her back against the ceiling and growled. Adam flew ahead and led them down an aisle until they reached a metal rack with grey boxes stacked one on top of another with flashing lights. A matrix of different wires and connectors surrounded it, most of which look ancient to Chloe compared to what was used today.
"Here's the networking hub for the building," Adam said. "The speeds you'd get with this type of wiring would be what was typical twenty years ago. They augmented it by increasing the number of links and multiplexed them. That would mean more physical connections added on within the cable bunches."
Chloe looked at Melinda.
Melinda shrugged and shook her head.
"So, what you're saying is, they added more and more cables to make it go faster, r
ight?" said Chloe.
"That's right, but it gets worse." Adam flew over to one of the metallic boxes lining the aisles. "The electrical equipment is a bit aged too."
"I'd say, look at the date on this thing. It's even older than me," Melinda said, holding a card from one of the rusted boxes.
"Careful!" Adam chided, zipping in front of her. "I have no idea when they last had maintenance work."
"If this thing lasted so long, it ain't gonna suddenly blow up just by me touching it." Melinda knocked on one of the panels. "See? Built to last."
"I still had to be careful how I traveled in them. The wiring inside was still rough. Too much load and we'd have a fire on our hands."
"And it's only now that we found out about this," said Chloe. "Great, just great."
"If I had to choose, the most urgent thing would be the circuit breakers," said Adam. "Those are the only things that could stop too much load from hitting the system. To replace them with modern ones will cost fifty to a hundred thousand credits in the short term. In the long term, you'd want to do a complete overhaul, replace wiring and breaker boxes."
Chloe took a couple steps back and pressed her foot down. She put her vibration vision to use once more, closing her eyes to get a rough mental image of the foundation. If the building lacked the density of a high-powered, there was no way they could work in here. Whether they'd built it properly or not, she didn't want the team to have the reputation of someone having knocked a building down with one step if she could help it. Seeing nothing along the walls and the ground was a good sign. The tremor didn't seem to have caused damage, but only an engineer would know for sure.
"Thanks, Adam," said Chloe, opening her eyes. "It doesn't look like that tremor weakened the building.
“How can you tell?”
“Vibration vision. One of Chloe's superpowers,” said Melinda.
“Any Silvan can do that and it's just an estimate,” said Chloe. “I'll get in touch with campus maintenance after we're done so we can get an engineer in here. This all doesn't make sense if we're put in a building with issues."
"Why do we need campus help anyway?” said Melinda. “They did a lousy job for years now. We should go with a contractor."
"We're already going to Hilda with a laundry list of things. If this can come out of the maintenance budget, we wouldn't look so needy."
"We can't depend on those guys, Chloe. Just say it's a safety issue, spend the money, and let Hilda deal with it."
"On day one?"
"It ain't our fault."
"It's a bad idea to put this on our budget."
"Kinda over budget already. Does it even matter?"
"It's about following proper policy and accountability so that people get a good first impression of us."
"So, what type of impression are they gonna get when they hear about you bringing in Vanessa?"
Chloe frowned and had no answer and for that.
Melinda placed her hands on her hips and leaned forward. Her tail whipped back and forth, slapping away at the boxes in anticipation.
Chloe's foot slid black slightly, then stopped. She resisted the urge to shrink away from this. Bringing in Vanessa was the right decision. After winning over Hilda on this, if she backed down now, she would have an even harder time backtracking on approved staff on top of asking for more money. She couldn't look weak in front of a Nyxazon, let alone two she'd be working with.
"Do I know who Vanessa is?" said Adam.
Both Chloe and Melinda turned toward him.
"I bet you do," said Melinda. "She's that walking firebomb that people in the know have been talking about."
"The Arijog from Specter Syndicate? That's her? Chloe hired her?" Adam took a moment to pull off his glasses and wiped his brow.
"Yup."
"We'd get computer equipment back because of partial melts. We got tired of spending too much time trying to repair them, so we just gave her new machines..."
Melinda raised her eyebrows in satisfaction.
"...but we also get that with other people with fire abilities, too," Adam continued.
Melinda's expression tightened, and Chloe picked up subtle growls from the co-director, which made her shift closer to Adam.
"Tell me more, Adam," said Chloe.
"If I get her really mad, she might just squash me, if not burn me, but it's pretty much the same with anyone who is 'regular' sized."
"Adam, I—" Melinda's body jerked up and her head hit the ceiling with a thump. "Gaaah, dammit!"
"Watch your head," said Chloe.
Melinda waved away Chloe and kneeled down to get closer to Adam. "Adam, I would never harm you. I'm glad you're around because you've helped me and a lot of people with tech stuff."
Adam hovered back and away from Melinda. "Thanks, but people still get mad at us if we can't solve their problems. I always have to be on guard. I almost got squashed by an old computer manual just yesterday."
"No way would I throw a book at ya."
"Even if I told you one day that I couldn't recover your lost sales pitch?"
"I want to guarantee that, but… I've had my moments."
That was true. When people with high levels of power were in a bad mood, they were walking disasters waiting to happen. Chloe was responsible for everyone's safety on her team, no matter the skill or powers. Like it or not, they were going to deal with clients who would take advantage of every weakness of her people. Chloe's foot slid back forward. She looked at Melinda, resolved this time.
"You're right, Lin."
"About Vanessa? Yeah, I knew you'd see things my way."
"We need Vanessa."
Melinda snarled, and her ears flattened. "Chloe, I ain't gonna let you make a stu—"
"Vanessa is going to be a part of my production team because she will help protect her teammates and act like a professional." Chloe took a step forward. "And, Vanessa will destroy anyone who gets in the way of doing what we need to get done. She'll help protect us if anyone has a bad day, especially Maylyn. And if Vanessa has a bad day, Maylyn and I will step in. We have to support each other if we want to win."
Melinda had her gaze down, looking at Chloe's foot, ears raised, and tail still. Melinda looked back up, then sighed.
"All right. Product is yours and sales is mine. But I'm going on the record as ‘do not like' when it comes to her. I ain't gonna apologize for not liking people who can cook clients for breakfast. She's fair game if she gets in my way."
She turned to head back upstairs before she stopped.
"And if I didn't know better, I'd say you're itching to build a team of monster tanks. Ain't that right Big Ms. Money?"
Chloe wouldn't answer that. When she looked behind herself, she found Adam hiding behind one of the electrical boxes. He peeked out and looked side to side. "Is it safe?"
"It's safe," Chloe said. "Sorry about that. We're just two directors having a heated debate. We still like each other."
"Yeah, we're good, Sparky. Superhero couples have fights all the time, then we kiss and make up at the end of each comic issue."
Chloe laughed. "We're not a superhero romance and you're already married with kids."
Melinda grinned. "And you, you're a leader now. You better make sure they respect ya. I'll do my best to back you up though, no matter what."
Melinda led them outside the room and got to the top of the stairs when she suddenly shifted next to the exit.
"Shh! Quick, over here," she whispered.
They both crept up and stood next to Melinda.
"What's going on?" Chloe whispered.
Melinda sniffed. "Something doesn't smell right out there, and it's coming closer. I'm smelling lots of sweat, dirt, and blood."
Chloe reached and cracked open the door where they saw a couple security officers pushing an anti-gravity cart.
"How much do you think we'll get?" An elf asked. He was of average height, slim with fair skin, long blond hair, and a crossbow on his back.
>
"The recruits aren't worth much. Wats said he'll group them all together as one package," said a demon. He was about the same height as the elf with pale red skin, short brown hair, and brown eyes. Short horns point outwards from his head.
"I must say, this plan of his was brilliant. She had no idea what was going on until it was too late," said the Elf.
"It was fun acting like that. But, I really wanted to try out my party bombs. They're like instant celebrations in a can. I still like the tried-and-true way to blow up stuff though," replied the Demon.
"Explosions are messy, Zurach."
"Explosions are an art, Dayarus," said Zurach "A movie can get a lot of money back by adding explosions in their special effects. Epic explosions make epic money."
The elf Dayarus tilted his head to the side. "If that's indeed true, why did you choose to work in security instead of movies?"
"Because, real-world explosions are better than the fake ones."
Dayarus frowned. "You are an unusual demon."
Just as the first cart passed, Chloe could make out three people inside wearing recruit uniforms. They were all unconscious, with legs and arms bound behind. On the far end was a woman who laid on her side with shell-shaped ears tapering out to sharp points, pale-golden scaled skin, a swimmer's build, and with regular legs. They’d stuffed her mouth with fabrics. Must have done that to keep her from singing or using her vocal abilities. The person in the middle was a Gotefalk, about as tall as the sea woman with a slim build. His fur was mostly white with a couple of black spots and his horns pointed upwards. The third person, the one nearest to Chloe, was a grey-skinned recruit she recognized from when she was onboarding earlier in the morning. Recruit Trens had a gash on the side of his head, and his sleeve was torn open.
"Keep watch on the recruits, guys," said another voice, one that was rougher than the other two. Chloe shifted and spotted a large orange orc who towered over the others. He pushed another anti-gravity cart, which had only one occupant. Chloe moved as much as she could to get a better view of who that might be.
"The last thing we need is for them to trick us," the orc said.
"I want this to end quickly and leave with our payout," said Dayarus.
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